


rather be spitting blood.

by katarama



Series: leave this blue neighborhood. [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Epikegster, Fights, Flashbacks, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 17:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10621395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: The truth is that Kent would move mountains to get Zimms back out there on the ice with him.  It had seemed so obvious in his head when he got in the car and drove down to Samwell.  Being able to move cap space around is one of the parts of being a captain he never messed with, but he knows that if faced with the decision to trade someone in order to clear out room for Jack, he’d take the heat from his team without giving it a second thought.  He could lay it out for Jack, offer up the chance to go back to what they were before, and Jack would get it.  Jack would say yes.But now that he’s here, Jack isn’t saying yes.  Jack isn’t saying anything at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  **If you're new to this series, start[HERE](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10586022).**

**December 2014**

 

 

“I miss you.”

It’s an admission that hurts as much to say as it does to hold it tight inside Kent’s chest.  There’s not one fucking thing about hearing the words out loud that isn’t painful.  It’s giving up the game, putting all his cards out on the table.  The only step further is an “I love you,” and even Kent isn’t that masochistic, not with the way this conversation is going.

“I miss you, okay?”

The words taste sweet in his mouth, and they hang in the air.  So he says them again.  He admits defeat, admits with those three little words that he has no idea who the fuck he is anymore without Jack, because Kent doesn’t know what else to do.  

Kent doesn’t know what else to say to Jack.

If he had any sort of distance from this at all, he’d be pretty embarrassed with himself right about now.  He probably will be, later, when he looks back.  He’s so desperate to be in Jack’s space that he’s stretching out Jack’s t-shirt just to make Jack know he’s there.  Kent isn’t even pretending he isn’t clinging to whatever scraps of Jack he can have right now.  Whatever scraps of Jack he can still recognize as his.  Jack’s body wash hasn’t changed.  Kent can smell it, and if this were five years ago, he’d be complaining about the way the scent clung to Jack’s skin and tasted like Axe when Kent buried his mouth and teeth and tongue into the dip in Jack’s collarbone.

There’s more that’s unfamiliar than familiar, though.  The shirt Kent’s holding onto for dear life is some shitty maroon thing from Jack’s shitty college team that he doesn’t seem to realize is just holding him back.  The body underneath the shirt is different, too; it’s sharper lines and fewer soft places for Kent to bury himself in, and if the circumstances were any different, Kent would be appreciating the fact that Jack is _built_  now, can probably hit like a mack truck.  But instead, in the moment, it’s just another way that things are different when they shouldn’t be.  

Kent can’t see Jack’s face, but he can bet that’s harder, too.

Kent’s words hang in the air, too clear, too emotional.  He hates it.  He hates the way the only sound he can hear is the muffled bass from the party music downstairs, the way it’s almost more of a feeling than a sound.  He hates the way he can’t walk anything back, can’t bullshit this after the fact to make it any less pathetic.  

The truth is that he’d move mountains to get Zimms back out there on the ice with him.  It had seemed so obvious in his head when he got in the car and drove down to Samwell.  Being able to move cap space around is one of the parts of being a captain he never messed with, but he knows that if faced with the decision to trade someone in order to clear out room for Jack, he’d take the heat from his team without giving it a second thought.  He could lay it out for Jack, offer up the chance to go back to what they were before, and Jack would _get it_.  Jack would say yes.

But now that he’s here, Jack isn’t saying yes.  Jack isn’t saying anything at all.  Kent can’t see Jack’s face from where he’s hiding, his forehead pressed to Jack's shoulder blade, bone on bone.  But he can hear Jack’s breathing, constrained and slow, like he’s forcing himself to breathe.  It’s something familiar, but in a way that is rapidly worsening the taste of bile in Kent’s mouth.  Kent can remember watching Jack count to himself, his breathing heavy, one two three four, one two three four, trying to keep his temper in check.  Kent can remember counting _for_  Jack when it wasn’t his temper, but his anxiety that was headed into a spiral.

Kent should’ve realized from the start that he wasn’t going to walk out of Jack’s death trap of a frat house unscathed, but it isn’t until that moment that he realizes just how bad things are going to go.  He’s touching Jack, as physically close as he can get without sealing his body against Jack’s in a way he hasn’t since the Q, but the quiet fills every centimeter of space and turns it into a mile.  Kent’s seen Jack do this a trillion times.  He knows what it looks like when someone took things a step too far and trampled over something they didn’t know shit about.  He knows what it looks like when Jack tries to ice himself over and fails, like it would make any of his actual feelings go away if he doesn’t acknowledge he’s not a robot.

Kent is just the fucking idiot who can’t seem to adjust to the fact that he now apparently fills the role of the jackass who makes Jack feel the need to respond that way, to shut himself out and hide his feelings under a thin veneer of irritation.  

The fabric of Jack’s shirt feels way too soft for what Kent is preparing himself for.  It would be more fitting if it was rough and coarse, rubbing his fingers raw so he had something to remember this by.  Some sort of _something_  to let Kent remember the way this moment feels, the way every harsh breath from Jack grates against Kent’s ears.  The absence of words, the ugly seconds of silence that stretch out for way too goddamn long on an answer that should be easy, sounds even worse than Jack’s thinly-checked emotions just waiting to spill over.  The quiet is maddening, making Kent want to reach out and drag Jack even closer, making Kent want to dig his blunt nails into every place he can that will make Jack open his mouth and say _something_.

Kent isn’t offering much, but he’s offered up all he’s got.  It’s everything he can promise Jack.  He misses him, and he doesn’t want to anymore.  He’s offering the chance for it all to finally end.

All Jack needs to do is close the silence.  Close the last of the gap.  Quit being a self-sacrificing shithead and take what Kent is holding up to him.

“...You always say that.”

Kent is not Jack Zimmermann.  Kent has never been good at holding down the lid on a well of rage and acting like it isn’t there under the surface.  He should be.  That would make him a better person.  Maybe that would make him the kind of person Jack would want.

But when Kent gets hurt, he gets even.  

Later on he won’t be embarrassed.  He’ll be guilty.  He’ll be mad at himself for fucking up every good chance he had.  He’ll be talking to his therapist and probably ugly crying and having to face the fact that his words and his actions have consequences.  That he couldn't stop them in the moment, but that that doesn't change the fact that no one owes him forgiveness.  That Jack certainly doesn’t, after what he said.

But the words feel so good when they spill from Kent’s mouth, like the sickening sort of high of a punch to the face that draws blood.  For just that single second, letting those words land blocks out the intense pain of being implicitly told, “I don’t want you anymore.”

If he could ignore the way Jack was shaking when Kent left, then maybe it would’ve stayed satisfying, instead of giving him another reason to be disgusted with himself.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](http://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com)


End file.
